Star Trek: UNITY Episode 1 The Knight's Tale
by Jimmoth
Summary: A starship crew are sent to their deaths to preserve the timeline. However, a former Starfleet officer, branded as a traitor and a murderer a century before, could yet save them. If you could go back, would you undo your mistakes? Or make more of them?
1. Prologue

This is my first attempt at a fanfic. It's a time travel caper and I hope to do quite a few episodes. It will mainly be my own characters with one or two familiar faces cropping up. I'll try to set it out like the old TV show, as well – intro, acts 1, 2 & 3. Anyway, here it is. Enjoy.

**Star Trek: U. ИITY**

_**Episode 1 – The Knight's Tale**_

PROLOGUE

He opened his eyes and saw nothing. He couldn't see his hand in front of his face, but this was more to do with the fact that his arms were secured to the chair, rather than the darkness. He looked down and, as his eyes got used to the gloom of the room, could make out the maroon of his uniform and the chair in which he was held. Not built for comfort; it was some kind of interrogation chair.

Obviously, whoever had taken him captive wanted something from him. The problem was, he didn't know how long he had been here or what had already gone on. His memory, usually so good, was somewhat fuzzy. He had the strangest feeling that his life had flashed before his eyes. In fact, he was worried that he may have already told them something.

Suddenly, the lights above him came on, surrounding him in a narrow cone of bright white light. Clearly, whatever he had told them hadn't been enough. Perhaps he could delay long enough to remember just what was going on…

A voice rang out, quite nasal, trying to sound reasonable, but clearly not used to it: "Shall we try again, Joe?"

"My name is Joseph S Carroll, I hold the rank of Lieutenant Commander in the Federation Merchant Marine Fleet. My number is…"

"Why do you wear a Starfleet uniform, then? We know that you used to serve with them and why you had to leave, but it seems strange that you appear now, back in the colours, as it were. Why are you wearing a Starfleet uniform, Joe?"

Carroll looked down at his uniform again. In this harsh light, there was no denying that his Merchant Marine uniform had somehow become a Starfleet one. One sleeve was ripped off. He wracked his brain to try and work out what had happened.

"Would you like us to help you remember, Joe? We have a psycho-tricorder here that could help you access your memories. Just think back to the last time you wore your true colours, Joe. You're not Starfleet, Joe. Remember who you are, Joe. Not Starfleet, Joe."

In the control room, three Romulans monitored Carroll's reactions. The one speaking into the microphone sat back, turning the intercom off as he did so. The larger of the three put his hand on the shoulder of the first and spun him around to face him.

"Doctor," he said, with a rumbling voice full of quiet menace, like the warning tremors of a volcano, "the Admiral needs those codes now. Why do you waste time with the psycho-tricorder when you have already said that this 'subject' is not affected by it?"

The doctor sighed and began to explain, speaking slowly, as if dealing with a stupid child: "Each time we attempt to gain some information, the subject experiences some slight amnesiac episodes. If we threaten him with 'reading his mind', as it were, it will make sense to him along with what he sees when we activate the holographic matrix. Whenever we display some kind of scenario from the historical archives, he corrects it, without even meaning to. We simply have to find the moment he came into contact with the device for the first time. And it will _take_ time."

The other person in the room stepped forwards now. A female Romulan. She slunk over to the doctor, oozing sensuality. It is clear how she thought she could get the information. The doctor sat up straight in his seat, staring directly ahead, trying not to make eye contact; she was having a completely different effect to the one she wanted to achieve, or did she? The doctor was clearly scared of this woman.

"Doctor, if you can't get what we want and get it now, I'll take over the interrogation. The Tal Shiar get results, remember that?" She put her mouth next to his ear and whispered, "We are very good at finding out secrets, Doctor."

The larger Romulan pulled her away. "Stop, sister. The good doctor is clear on what the Admiral wants. And he will deliver. I do think, however, that traipsing through endless historical records and analysing his reactions will not yield the desired codes."

The doctor protested "Centurion, any of these incidents could be the basis for the code that he chose to lock out the device. It makes sense to go through these memories with a fine tooth comb. We just…"

"No," the centurion interrupted. "Go over the sensor data from the moments immediately prior to our acquisition of the device. It was in his possession, then. If we can recreate the situation he found himself in, he could try to lock the device out again. And there we will have our codes, doctor."

Carroll sat there under the spotlight, trying to recall how he came to be in this situation. There was a fight with someone, of that he was sure. Someone close to him? Over an object of some type…some equipment that did something special. It was just about coming back to him. Think…

As he pondered, he didn't notice the lights go down. Suddenly, all the stars came out, above, below, all around him. He was floating in space. Yes, he thought, I was in zero-G, I was in space. But then what happened? He looked around and saw two objects floating there, no, not floating, struggling, what are they? He found himself steadily approaching the objects. Oh Lord. I remember.

There, in front of him, suspended in space, were two figures, locked in mortal combat: one was a man, in a damaged spacesuit, with one hand on a bizarre piece of equipment; the other was…himself, also with one hand on the device, but a hand with the flesh stripped from it, revealing a sophisticated mechanical endoskeleton. All the way up the arm, the skin had been torn, along with the sleeve of the Starfleet uniform. The face of the second figure was sheared down one side, showing the glint of an android's metallic skull, but the rest…the rest was irrefutable. The face was Carroll's own.


	2. Act 1

**Star Trek: U. ИITY**

_**Episode 1 – The Knight's Tale**_

_**ACT 1 – **_

Captain Morgan Bateson hurried down a corridor aboard his ship, the USS Bozeman – A, followed somewhat hesitantly by one of his many new crewmen, Ensign Skye.

"I apologise, Ensign, for all the problems we seem to be having with the holographic arrays throughout the ship".

Skye, being a holographic lifeform, had been finding it difficult to get around the Bozeman, as the necessary modifications to enable access to all parts of the ship had been either delayed or were constantly breaking down. As it was, she had to either take circuitous routes through obscure areas of the ship or had been rerouting her program directly to the necessary locations.

"There's no problem, really, Captain. I can still get to where I need to go."

Bateson strode on regardless, calling over his shoulder to speak to the young Yaderan officer. "Nonsense! It's not the kind of thing that I expect to be happening on my ship! Everything should be 'ship-shape and Bristol-fashion'! Seems that I'm going to have to speak to one or two of these new crewmen about their priorities. Bad enough that I'm foisted with practically half a roster of people I didn't select, but they aren't even doing the jobs that they're supposed…" The captain stopped suddenly, realising that he'd been talking to himself for, at least, the past hundred yards. He turned and, sure enough, down the corridor, he could see Ensign Skye stood on the spot. She had lost all the colour from her image (turning black and white) and half of her right arm!

"Permission to relay direct to Transporter room 2, sir?"

Bateson sighed, before nodding. "See you there, Ensign."

Skye stepped backwards, moving into a spot where her signal was fully restored. Pressing her combadge, she gave the ship's computer the instruction to de-activate her and re-activate her in another part of the ship. A moment later, she was gone.

Bateson tapped his own combadge. "Bateson to Schumacher."

He received a somewhat distorted response. "Schumacher here, sir."

"I thought the chief told you to make the holo-emitters on Deck 12 a priority, Lieutenant. Yet, here I am, walking along with our Yaderan crewman, Ensign Skye, and, lo and behold, said member of my crew is denied the right to walk around the ship on which she serves, because the damn things still aren't working! Now I was led to believe you were an expert on holo-graphic systems, is that right?"

"Holo-bases, sir, like the ones used on first-contact missions, but this is a little different, sir, you see, because of the type of assignments I was…"

The captain was in no mood for this. "I don't care what you did on your…previous assignments. I'm sure I can guess, keeping your presence hidden from the natives, as you stick your nose into things you shouldn't, no doubt!"

Schumacher, foolishly, tried to justify himself to his new CO. "Technically, sir, it was in a pre-warp civilisation, so…"

"Get yourself down here now! I want this problem fixed. Whatever you think you're doing now, drop it and get this sorted out!" Bateson paused. "Where are you, anyway? Your comm sounds strange."

"I'm on the hull, sir. Just, erm…, reinforcing some minor damage to one or two areas of the, er, of the hull…, sir…"

"_Minor_ damage?"

"Yes, sir."

"To the hull?"

"Ah…yes…sir."

"Why isn't Levy doing that? He's the spaceframe engineer."

"He, uh, he's been helping me with the holo-emitters on Deck 6, sir. He, um…"

_Oh God_, thought Bateson. _A holo-engineer working on the spaceframe and a spaceframe engineer working on the holo-emitters. No wonder nothing works._

"What's wrong with your comms, Lieutenant?"

"Well, sir, someone else out here had no comms on their EVA suit at all, so I tried to fix it out here using what I had and…"

Bateson cut him off. "…and you're doing everything but the work you were ordered to do! Get to it and get Levy back on the hull! Otherwise, we will be having some serious discussions about your continued presence on this starship! Captain Bateson out!"

He thought he might just remind Schumacher who was in charge with that added 'Captain', but Bateson knew that his threat, at the moment, was an empty one. Schumacher was yet another one of hundreds of crew forced upon him by those higher up.

_Is this a conspiracy?_, he thought. _One of the few crewmen personally chosen by myself and, conveniently, she's pushed to the sidelines, due to a technical hitch._

Bateson had wanted to use Skye in a more important role, but events behind the scenes had overtaken him and he was being overruled on practically everything he had planned to do. He'd even taken the young ensign to London as his personal aide. He had been pushed and pulled this way and that and, now, he was being forced to replace a good three hundred hands with agents from the Temporal Investigation Branch.

Morgan Bateson himself had been in the employ of the TIB for a fair few years after he and his original crew had appeared in the 23rd century. A temporal anomaly in the 22nd century had trapped his ship into a perpetual timeloop, before the USS Enterprise – D, under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, had managed to free them.

Unfortunately, his prior connections with TIB were interfering with his ability to do his 'day job'; that is, as a starship captain in Starfleet. TIB had taken over the chain of command and this meant that, effectively, he was TIB's to utilise as they wished.

After being 'requested' to attend the meetings at TIB HQ in London, he was given his orders. Yet, for some reason, he couldn't let it lie. He had asked Ensign Skye to do a little bit of investigating for him. He now wished that he hadn't. It turned out that it had been a red herring – although, not a complete waste of time. It had alerted the big boys at TIB of his concerns and they had conceded enough to allow him to see Sir Sam, a meeting which replaced his original worries with something altogether more complex.

A side-effect of asking Skye to look into his problem seemed to be that she could not let go of the whole investigation, as much as he may have wanted her to. He originally thought that, as an artificial lifeform, she could, technically, just wipe the whole incident from her memory banks, but he didn't feel right asking her to do that – not again, not that she'd recall. It was just she said that she had been seeing Sir Sam on the ship. Bateson knew that that was physically impossible. But the person she had been investigating…she kept seeing him in different places all over the ship. In a way, he was glad that she was relaying her program more often at the moment, as it prevented her having any more hallucinations, as she saw fewer people around.

He needed her to concentrate on a very important job; one that might prevent a disaster. He was damned if he was just going to roll over and allow something of this magnitude to happen – especially now that he knew what was coming…

- - - o o O o o - - -

The saucer section of the Ambassador-class ship, the USS Amity, had materialised out of some kind of temporal rift, only minutes earlier. Skye's role was to monitor the area for signs of fluctuation or, in the captain's words, 'anything even a little bit _fishy_'. Captain Bateson had been ordered to investigate the Amity saucer's appearance, but he had refused to send over more than a token away team. The amount of information that the powers-that-be expected the Bozeman to gain from this mission was extensive, to say the least, so how a skeleton team were going to manage it was anyone's guess.

That the Amity had been expected at all was due to the fact that it was a serial 'blip' on Starfleet records. There had been numerous sightings for years, since its initial disappearance. Enough, in fact, to make some pretty accurate predictions as to its next manifestation. However, it seemed like Captain Bateson was being inordinately cautious about it disappearing sooner than expected.

Skye had been spending most of her time on the Bozeman, indulging in a little investigation on behalf of the captain. He seemed to think that the mission they were on might have something to do with someone high up in TIB. Skye was asked to find out who and why. But then, just as she felt she was getting close to an answer, the captain told her to stop. So, now she was being put to another task. The transporter room she had relayed herself to (Number two) had not experienced any of the irritating holographic glitches that currently plagued the ship and she was able to interact with her environment completely.

Scanning the saucer, she kept on the alert for anything '_fishy'_. If anything seemed to put the away team at risk, she was to beam them out, at once. Bateson surmised that, as an artificial lifeform, Skye may be that little bit faster to react than anyone else, thus giving the away team vital fractions of a second.

The door swished open and a young medical assistant stepped through. He was large, with dark hair and eyes, as befit someone of Maori descent. He saw Skye and smiled.

"Feeling any better, sir?"

Skye looked at him, with a quizzical expression.

"I'm sorry. I don't…Have we met?", she said.

The well-built young man held his hands up. "No, no, let me apologise. We haven't been introduced. I'm Nurse Pauleta. You spoke to my colleague earlier, Nurse Nameo, the Napean gentleman?"

"Oh!" exclaimed Skye, somewhat embarrassed that what she had thought had been a confidential medical query seemed to be common knowledge.

Pauleta noticed her expression. "No no, sir! Let me apologise again! I'm just here to be ready for the away team, if I'm needed. We don't discuss people's situations, honestly!"

Skye relaxed a little. She had been quite nervous, going to sickbay. She had already gone to see someone in engineering, but they told her that she was working to all normal parameters and seemed fine. They suggested that she go down to see the counsellor, if it was more of a psychological problem. She spoke to Nameo, who was a nurse assigned to assist the counsellor. Being a Napean, he was empathic, but had had difficulty reading Skye, for obvious reasons, and, if she was being honest, hadn't really helped much at all, for, as soon as she left sickbay, she saw the man again. She had blinked and he had gone.

Skye turned to Nurse Pauleta. "It's alright, crewman. No need to apologise over and over."

"I'm sorry", Pauleta apologised again. The pair laughed at the obvious joke.

"It's just the way I am. Must be because of how I was named. Apollo. Apollo-gy"

Skye raised an eyebrow. She hadn't really got to know many of her crewmates yet and here was an opportunity to make a rare friend.

"That's your middle name? Gee?"

Pauleta's face fell a little and he mumbled something. Skye realised that she might have offended him. "Sorry, I'm from the Gamma Quadrant. I'm not really used to being in Starfleet yet. I was fast-tracked, you see. I never even went to the Academy. Everyone else knows everybody else from somewhere and I haven't really met many people yet. I didn't mean to say anything wrong!"

Pauleta looked around to see if anyone else could hear them and moved closer to whisper to Skye. "You promise not to laugh?"

Skye, surprised that not only was he still happy to talk to her, but was ready to tell her a secret, nodded. He moved even closer and spoke in a tiny voice:

"Eleven."

"What?"

"That's my name. Apollo Eleven Pauleta."

Skye, being from another area of the galaxy altogether, didn't see what was funny about it. It seemed as good a name as any. "Oh, that's nice."

Pauleta looked puzzled at first and then felt he ought to explain a little.

"You see, I was born on the Moon. You know, Earth's Moon – Luna."

"I see."

"My family's tradition is that a child is named after the first thing the mother sees when the child is born. My mother could see the Apollo 11 landing site from where she gave birth to me. I was named after a spaceship."

Skye held out her hand. "Well, Apollo 11 Pauleta, my name is Skye, named after a region of a planet's atmosphere. Nice to meet you…" They shook hands, just as Captain Bateson walked through the transporter room doors.

"Excuse me for breaking up this touching tableau, but I believe I gave you a job to do, Ensign…"

The pair let each other's hand go.

"Sorry, Captain. There have been no disturbing fluctuations, so far, sir," offered Skye.

"I'm surprised you even noticed, young lady," her captain countered. Skye was just about to protest that it wasn't like that at all, when she noticed Bateson allowing himself a smile. "Nice to see you making friends, Skye," he whispered, before continuing in his normal commanding tone, "Carry on!".

"I'm patched directly into the sensors, sir. If anything, uh, '_fishy_' happens, then I'll be ready to…"

Just at that moment, something lit up on the screen in front of her.

"Massive temporal flux, sir! Completely surrounding the saucer!"

"Get them out of there! Medic, be ready!", ordered Bateson.

"Yessir!", said Pauleta, as he knelt by the transporter pad, waiting for the first (possible) casualties to beam up. But nothing happened.

"What's the problem, Ensign?", cried the captain.

"I can't get any kind of lock, sir! It's not working!"

_I've failed_, thought Bateson,_ I've killed them!_

"Are you accounting for the temporal flux? Can't you do something about it?"

Skye struggled with the controls. "That's not the problem, sir. I can find them, no trouble at all. I just can't transport them out. I think…" Skye looked at her screen again. "I think that someone else has activated a transporter beam, as well. It's interfering with our own beam. The problem is that it's covering the whole saucer! And there's something else, sir…"

Bateson bit his cheek, as his transporter officer explained: "There are more lifesigns on board now, sir. Over eighty more people on board. I'm not sure whether they've been transported in or not. There's still a lot of temporal flux going on. Oh, hang on, it's gone, sir! The temporal fluctuations have stopped!"

Skye turned to her captain, waiting for his orders. Bateson thought for a second or two. Skye wondered whether she should add something that could be important.

"Sir, I can't transport out, but I might be able to cut through the interference enough to transport people in. I know that some of these lifesigns are fluctuating. They may need help, sir. We could send in medical teams…"

"NO! Absolutely not! I will not risk any more of my crew in that death-trap! If they can't get off that ship, they'll be stuck there! The temporal flux could come back at any time and I can't lose anyone else!"

Pauleta spoke up. "Sir, I would like to volunteer to board the saucer, sir. It's my duty to help in an emergency. Please, sir! Ours could be dying, too, sir!"

"They're already dead!", bellowed Bateson.

Skye looked again at her monitor. "Actually, sir. From what I can see, there are definite signs from our away team. We may have lost Commander Daniels, I think, sir, but the others are still there. Robinson's signs are a bit strange, but they're there, sir!"

_Daniels, dead? And, Robinson, of course! _Bateson shuddered. He had seen what had happened to Lt Robinson, back at TIB HQ. The poor man had even shown Bateson around the building, little realising his eventual fate. Such a horrible thing to allow to happen, but if he just left things as they were, he could save lives – a handful dead, instead of hundreds. He had to sacrifice a few for the many.

"Robinson's lifesigns are fluctuating bizarrely, sir. I don't think he has long."

"The other lifesigns aren't human, are they, Ensign?"

"No, sir. They're…Romulan, sir!"

"Look carefully at Robinson's signal, Ensign. It varies, doesn't it? One moment, it's him, the next…"

Pauleta made the observation for himself, "…they become Romulan lifesigns! Are you saying Robinson was some kind of impostor, sir?"

"No, Medic. I'm saying that, however those other lifesigns got there, Lt Robinson has been caught in the middle. He's as good as dead. I'm sorry, but that's just how it is…" Bateson went to press his combadge.

"Wait, Captain!", Skye shrieked, "There's another human lifesign!"

Bateson paused briefly. _What's one more? For the greater good…_

"Leave it, Ensign. There's nothing you can do."

Skye continued to scan the saucer. "The Amity is from the early 23rd century, isn't it, Captain? But I can detect a holographic matrix on board! It wasn't there before, sir! I think that all those lifesigns came on a ship, sir, and it somehow beamed into the same space as the Amity saucer! The transporter field that's covering the saucer must be on that other ship! If we could stop that transporter signal, we could get everyone out!"

Bateson looked at his junior officer. "A holographic matrix, you say? Could you relay your signal to that location and still be able to return here safely?"

"Yes, Captain!"

"I'm not willing to send any more personnel onto that thing, in case it ups and disappears on us, but if we send some pattern enhancers across, could you set them up, so that we can get people out? If that thing vanishes, will you reset to appear here?"

Skye wasn't sure what would happen if she went out of range of the Bozeman, but it seemed a likely proposition. Besides, the captain was allowing her to perform a rescue mission! She agreed with everything that was suggested: "Yes, absolutely! It's completely fine! We're running out of time, sir!"

Bateson didn't hesitate. "Make it so!"

- - - o o O o o - - -

He opened his eyes and saw nothing. He couldn't see his hand in front of his face, but could feel his breath on his fingers. Well, that was new, he thought. He waved his hand before his face, feeling the draught he made, smelling the blood. Somehow, his arm had come free from the restraints on the chair, but was cut in the process. He felt around to see if he had any other injuries: a cut and a bump on the back of his head, maybe a bruised rib or two, a split lip. Generally he was okay. He wondered whether his captors had taken to beating the information out of him. If so, they'd not made much of an effort. He ran his free hand over the arm of the chair. The bracket securing his restraint had been torn out. So he hadn't managed to free his arm himself. Something had happened to the ship, then.

The darkness was total. Earlier, he had managed to see tiny details in the room, through some residual light, but this wasn't the kind of darkness used for effect; it was a power failure. Something bad had happened.

He felt a slight difference in the orientation of the room, as if he was tilting to one side. Reaching his arm to the side, he encountered a wall, which wasn't there before. Had the chair fallen over? Was this the floor? There seemed to be a strange fluctuation with the gravity, as if the inertial dampeners couldn't decide at which angle 'down' was. Carroll had some considerable experience with environmental systems and recognised a conflict in the gravitational field. Something very bad must have happened.

---oooOOOooo---

Skye stood in the main engineering hub, as Lieutenant Commander Baath, the Troglodyte Chief of Engineering, explained to her just exactly how they were going to send her to the other holographic matrix that had appeared on the Amity saucer.

"There is no way we can be sure what is over there," said the squat furry Chief, "but, once you arrive, concentrate solely on activating the pattern enhancers."

Baath only came up to Skye's chest, but he paced up and down the Engineering section like an eight-foot mulato. Walking away from Skye, over to a power relay console, he resembled a large aquatic rodent – a beaver or an otter – but, as he turned to face her once more, she did what she could not to shudder at the elaborate, bat-like nose with its amazing, labyrinthine array of channels. She was simply glad that he wore his tinted blast goggles under this light to protect his sensitive eyes, because she wouldn't have been able to hold his gaze without flinching.

Baath continued with his briefing. "Now the interfering transporter signal is still active, preventing us from beaming out, but it tells us that there is power on the ship. Hopefully, the holo-matrix is still active, as well. If not, we will have to turn it back on ourselves."

The nervousness on Skye's face must have been clear, as Maala, Baath's wife and Second-in-section, walked over and put her shovel-sized paw on Skye's arm.

"It's alright, dear heart. The carrier wave we will use to relay your signal over can be used as a direct power feed, as well. It'll be fine…", whispered Maala, with a smile forming beneath her more petite, but no less complex, bat-nose. As the squat engineer stood back, her voice became more formal.

"It's time, Ensign."

Skye stood there for a moment, waiting for something to happen, when she realised that everyone else was doing exactly the same. They were waiting for Skye to give the order herself! Trying not to let the enormity of the whole enterprise overwhelm her, she tapped her combadge, gave the order - "Prepare to transfer program to deflector array. Engage!" – and vanished.

- - - o o O o o - - -

Carroll, by now, had managed to stand with both feet braced against his chair, as he tried to wrest the remaining restraint from its housing. His arm was fastened too securely inside it, but if whatever had happened to the ship had loosened one restraint, then maybe it could have done enough to the other that he could finish the job.

He had strained and strained, but got no further. The fact that he hadn't the faintest idea how to get out of the holo-cell, once he was out of the chair, made no difference. He just knew he had to get out.

Carroll had been born in space, spent his first days in zero gravity and lived most of his childhood and much of his adult life in artificial environments. He had an … affinity with artificial gravity and this informed his opinion on what may have occurred. And what he dreaded may happen next.

Having noticed the variation in gravitation, Carroll surmised that there could be only one reason for this. Another gravity source. He also believed that there was no way at all that another source of gravity could appear without it being a very serious thing.

Because artificial gravity only works in one direction at a time, the only way that the ship itself could create two conflicting fields, would be if the ship had been split in two and each part was affecting the other. Analysis: a bad thing. Get off the ship.

If another vessel's artificial gravity was affecting the ship, then, somehow, one or both vessels must have had their structural integrity compromised for its gravity to affect anything outside the hull. If it is this ship, see example #1. If it is the other vessel, then being close enough to feel the other vessel's gravimetric field is close enough to be catastrophically damaged when the other vessel explodes. Analysis: also a bad thing. Get off the ship.

Finally, if the fluctuations are not coming from a ship, then it must be a natural phenomenon. A planet. A star. A black hole. Analysis: ?

A black hole? Forget about it. He couldn't get to a ship that could escape one.

A star? He could use a ship to escape in, but he'd be very lucky if there was a ship he could use. Unless there was a specially reinforced shuttlecraft, his choice would be restricted to this ship and in this condition (damaged and low on power). Not the best choice.

A planet? If this ship really was making planetfall, it was doing so rapidly and was probably about to crash. There wouldn't be much time, but if he could get free in time, he could try an escape pod and, maybe, land on the surface.

The fact the ship was producing any gravity of its own at all meant that there was still power. Perhaps the systems would slowly be coming back online. Hopefully, not too soon, though. Carroll remembered the simulation the holo-cell played just before the 'incident' – deep space, along with zero-gravity.

At this specific moment, his restrained arm was pointed in the direction of the other gravity source. If the gravity in this section suddenly turned itself off, then his mass would fall in that direction, while his arm would not. He had to get free before the simulation started up again. Luckily, holo-programs were unlikely to be a priority and, certainly, maintaining environmental control, including gravity, would be. As long as the holo-generator wasn't turned back on somehow, he would be fine.

It was just then, that, one by one, the stars started to come out.


End file.
